Thursday, August 23, 2012

Whatever I was expecting from Lima it was not surfers and paragliders, olives for breakfast and old VW bugs and vans on the streets. Nor was it Saturday night dancing in the Parque Kennedy, just a stroll from our hostel in upscale Miraflores. Old and young, they were all out in force, in jackets, scarves and boots (high-heeled for the many fashionistas) against the chill, dancing, strolling, snacking, until way past my bedtime. There were more people out in the park at night that during the day, it seemed .

In the neighboring streets the waiters wage polite but determined warfare, with each other, and with us, but very good humoredly, for patronage and the restaurants don't close down until the wee hours. My fantasies of daily ceviche are easy to realize here.

Each Sunday there is a fifty-block 'take back the calle' street fair on Avenida Arequipa, where in addition to the bikes, skateboards, rollerblades, baby strollers and dogs, there was high-energy dancing, tai-chi -like something, free sports drinks, climbing walls, acrobatics, even an outdoor beauty parlor, all of which we surveyed from our rented bikes.

Later in the day, down on the seaside cliffs, we gawked as the 'parapentes' parasailors stepped the cliff and tacked effortlessly above the Sunday strollers and shoppers at the Larcomar mall which also sort of hangs from the cliff. When is the last time you did something for the first time -that thought has been with me recently, but somehow I avoided the opportunity to glide in tandem with a presumably experienced glider for twenty minutes and sixty dollars. Maybe next time?

All this activity took place under a chill and dreary cloud - the garua, a sort of fog bank, which blankets the coast from ?April to December. Thankfully, it doesn´t seem to quite reach the ground.

I think it's partly because of the cold Humboldt current which comes up the coast. The surfers, and we could see dozens, were of course in wetsuits but the waves looked nicely formed and regular, so much so that we were wondering how boats could access the nice yacht harbor we saw. According to the guard, it's not always quite so rough, and sometimes the harbor is just closed. Also it was a private harbor behind high walls, holding only local members' boats of the Wellcraft and catamaran type Anyone thinking of sailing to Peru should read the comments on noonsite.com (and avoid Paita).
http://www.noonsite.com/Countries/Peru?rs=ClearanceAgents#YachtClubPeruano

The two best attractions we saw, other than the streetscapes of Miraflores, Barranco and the center of the Old Town, were the Larco Musuem and the nighttime display of fountains at the Parque de la Reserva I think it's called. The museum is nicely presented, with signs also in English, the pottery is admirable and you can learn a good deal about the various cultures which preceded the Incas in this area.

The park is popular with everyone. The fountains are colored and lit and computerized; we laughed and laughed as people tried to wend their way dry through the randomly timed jets of the Labyrinth, then tried it ourselves. Wouldn't want to get too wet though. It's the dead of winter here, July and August, temps down to the fifties at night and always gray It doesn't seem that anyone has heat, just jackets and scarves and for us the comforting press of heavy blankets in our hotels. I'm really glad to have my flannel pajamas which emerged from four years of zip-lock but are most welcome now.

I'd also like to mention an ambitious construction site we saw. Like everywhere downtown traffic can be horrendous. The solution here is to make a tunnel beneath the Rimac River starting just about where Pizarro planted his flag to found the city (in January when the sun is shining say the guides) It's a three year project - in the meantime the river has a little channel alongside. That's the famous Pan-American highway which runs the length of the continent that they're burying.

Next, off to the desert. I hope I'll be able to add my buckets of photos to my SmugMug site but right now seems not. Things are going to be a little rough for a while. Later!

Saturday, August 11, 2012

Here we are at the airport in Panama City. Off the boat. Off the land. Off our familiar hemisphere. The toilets may flush the other way 'round where we're going. I'll let you know.

Peru, a place completely new to me, will be at the bottom of the ramp, I hope.

We're trying to travel light, one carry-on each. We think they each weigh about 22 pounds. My backpack (mochilla) is new so i know it's capacity is 35 liters. The weight is okay but i'm a little concerned about the density of what I've stuffed in there, much of it compressed in Ziploc bags. I think I'll be pretty tired of this 'travel' dress when I'm done!

No computer, just this little sort of smart iPhone loaded with books and maps.

We'll be gone a couple months. Galivant is hauled out in the Secure Storage Yard at Shelter Bay Marina, Colon, Panama with a dehumidifier humming away - it's been shocking to see how mold or whatever it is, grows even when we're there with all the hatches open and the humidity streaming through.

But we're not letting the moss grow under our feet. Peru here we come!

Friday, August 10, 2012

Portobelo,
Panama, is the unofficial capital of the Costa Abajo, that stretch of Panama's
Caribbean Coast that runs west from Kuna Yala/San Blas.Behind the narrowish coastal plain there are
big hills/small mountains (the tallest, Cerro Carti, is 748 meters).

The bay is nice
and big, deep in the middle, shallow around the edges. Although open to the
west, from whence can come some powerful rockin’and rollin’ when the tradewinds
are in abeyance, it’s a pretty good harbor most of the time. The land is still quite wooded, but more and more now cleared in the service of cattle (McDonald's, we hear you!) and small agriculture (spindly corn, bananas, tubers like yuca). A couple rivers
come in at the east end, which make for nice dinghy excursions through the
cattle bottoms.

To someone coming the 40 miles from the San
Blas islands Portobelo feels like a big, even modern, place (5 Chinese grocery stores!
buses to Colon! 3000 people! maybe). Also on our ‘haven’t seen that for a while’ list are wheeled
vehicles larger than baby strollers, such as taxis, pickups, and dump trucks. There's even a front-end loader in town, for moving the trash pile. Different body types, not just the small-framed Kuna people, but Anglos and Africans and lots of blended. The
sound of howler monkeys is back with us (really makes me wonder why they’re
never heard in the mainland areas of Kuna Yala) in an early morning duet with the
screech of bus brakes (Bluebird ex-schoolbuses, splendidly painted and speaker-powered).

The buses have their own distinctions - and you'll learn quickly which ones have the biggest speakers, and the hard-to-open windows, but you'll get in anyway. Colon is an hour and a half away, and Panama City another hour or so, depending on traffic!

The Chinese
groceries have distinct personalities too, and are full of surprises, but often short of fresh fruit and veg.
For your nutritional needs, you listen for the loudspeakers screeching something from the top of
a pickup-truck. If you’re quick you can usually find the truck somewhere in
town, or wait around until he comes back a couple hours later from 'the end of the road' at Isla Grande/La Guiara.

The Portobelo of today is a funkily pleasant place that makes me think of all the complementary forces in the universe, feng shui and the ebb and flow of styles, fortunes, cultures partly in ascendance, partly in decline, like all of us. There are good things here, and friendly people, and some puzzles too.

What put Portobelo on the list of World Heritage sites is its history. The Spanish conquistadors began to use Portobelo as their major Caribbean loading place for the riches they were removing from South America. Gold and silver and others items valued by the Spanish were transported overland through the jungle to the Caribbean and loaded into convoys for shipment to Spain. Nuestra Senora de
Atocha, the wrecked treasure ship that is the foundation of Mel Fisher's Treasure Museum in Key West, sailed from here.

Nuestra Senora de Atocha, courtesy of theamericano.com

"PORTOBELO ON THE SPANISH MAIN“The
city was also victim of one of Captain Henry Morgan's notorious adventures. In
1668, Morgan led a fleet of privateers and 450 men against Portobelo, which, in
spite of its good fortifications, he captured and plundered for 14 days,
stripping it of nearly all its wealth. This daring endeavour, although
successful, also proved particularly brutal as it involved rape, torture, and
murder on a grand scale.” from Wikipedia, and more in The Sack of Panama by Peter Earle.

We were anchored in the harbor on the 344th anniversary of this attack, during inclement weather, and it was interesting to go ashore with 'new eyes' after reading this.

Then, also according to Wikipedia, after another humiliation by the
British under Admiral Edward Vernon, (in the War of Jenkins’ Ear), the Spanish
redesigned the defenses. Vernon took a big loss in Cartagena, but the world was
changing. The Spanish finally learned to make their fleets smaller; then ships
more regularly sailed to western South America via Cape Horn. So the forts
whose ruins decorate Portobelo today never were used as forts; they became quarries supplying stone for early Panama Canal construction. Also, mustn't forget to mention that Sir Francis Drake died of dysentery and was buried at sea in a lead-coffin not too far away. Maybe someone will be finding that someday soon.Today the Customs House, once reputedly so full that silver ingots were stored outside on the street, has a museum on the ground floor, and an evolutionary 'garden' on the roof. Plus, those are supposed to be the scars of British attack on the wall.

PHOTO TREASURE HOUSE ROOF

The forts
have restored areas, reader boards and visitors who dutifully wander through.

PHOTO FORT WITH COWSThe hills are steep and all I can think as I myself trudge about, redoubt to lookout, is how dreadful it must have been to be the slave, conscript or flunky on any of these projects. Charged with clearing jungle, digging, shaping and moving stones, humping stuff up the slope, no matter the heat, humidity, insects, disease, nutritional deficiency - and for what? Such big 'public works' for so little 'public.' In hindsight it looks pointless and even at the time, it must have been difficult to muster enthusiasm, unless it was whipped in.

So Portobelo’s other big attraction is its church, Iglesia de San Felipe, whose interior
features the Black Christ of Portobelo. The history of the life-sized image of Jesus carrying the Cross is shrouded in the mists of time, and imagination - carved in Spain? Washed ashore in Portobelo? But there are so many stories of miracles associated with the Black Christ that tens of thousands of pilgrims visit the Church (the new building, eventually completed in 1945) every October 21, some crawling on hands and knees. Reportedly, their number includes penitent rapists, muggers and thieves, the Black Christ being the patron saint of criminals, this according to http://www.coloncity.com/blackchrist.html.

PHOTO
FAMILY AT BLACK CHRIST ALTAR

Nowadays Portobelo is where many backpackers come to find a ride to Cartagena by sea - as traffic can't get through the Darien peninsula by road. It's where a wide variety of craft come to make a bit of money on that trade, some excellent and some downright dangerous. It's the first 'big' place people come to after cruising the San Blas, heading for the Canal, or for time away in Shelter Bay or Bocas del Toro. I'll bet Captain Jack's Canopy Bar, restaurant, hostel and gathering place up the hill sells a lot of hamburgers to long-deprived carnivorous cruisers.

Maybe something in the air from all those centuries of soldiers of fortune has provided leavening for new generations of their descendants. Portobelo has more than the usual number of gnarly single-handers and boats which may never leave here - a regular little community of them in fact. One fellow got his boat to rest high and dry on a reef, on purpose. He's always pointed out of the harbor, but never going. Here's my favorite: Absolute Absolution, a 53' catamaran built via creative recycling of scavenged materials by someone not a naval architect. A mast on each hull. We're all individuals out here, and there too. I need to find a better picture when I have access to my 'stacks', but you'll perhaps get the idea.

"This is a "Fourth Way" project which will change its direction and details many times along the way."http://www.floatingneutrinos.com/Buoyant%20Neutrinos/background.htm#Photo%20Gallery. This website is pretty dense.Unfortunately, the most famous Floating Neutrino died not too long ago - here's his obituary from -yes -the Wall Street Journal - worth the read, IMO.http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704013604576104412565095674.html

Another thing that can be said about Portobelo is that it rains a lot here. Rust, mildew, damp, facts of life. Some of the ruined houses were knocked over in landslides last year. There are also an inordinate number of Black Vultures in town. They congregate on the roof of the cathedral, on the cemetery walls, on the trash pile (of course). Not the most charismatic of birds, but there are others!

Now, I think I've said enough about Portobelo. If you want to know more, you'll just have to visit for yourself.

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About

Galivant is a verb meaning "to roam about for pleasure without any definite plan" and that's what we do here! Galivant is a 40-foot sailboat. The crew, Ann and Doug, finds sailing a good way to travel, and blogging a good substitute for postcards and letters we used to send home. However, the blog's most popular post is about howler monkeys (link Morning Soundscape).
More specifically, Galivant is a 1976 Valiant 40, #124. Doug is a 'retired' captain who wants to cruise again before he's too old to set the main. Ann cooks, cleans, navigates, facilitates- and is learning to blog. Your comments and suggestions are welcome here.